


through the eyes of the atoms we're made of

by mercurybard



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fabulous Killjoys Fusion, Community: we_are_cities, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-19 23:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11323722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercurybard/pseuds/mercurybard
Summary: Eventually you become your gun





	through the eyes of the atoms we're made of

**Author's Note:**

> From the we_are_cities [prompt](http://we-are-cities.livejournal.com/292176.html)

She calls her gun 'Venom Red'. Everybody out here gives their gun a name. You stay out here long enough and take down enough dracs, then eventually you become your gun. Your name burns off in the lip-cracking heat, and all that remains is the battered raygun you jacked the vending machine for and painted cherry bomb red.

So the gun-that-is-the-woman Venom Red pops the top on a can and passes it to him. Her pale hair--bleached to golden orange with industrial cleaner in a filthy fuel station bathroom--is green in the chem light that lies in the sand between them. They sit so close their knees are touching. The gun-that-is-the-man Jet Star digs two fingers into the slimy, pre-moistened dog food and scrapes it into his mouth, swallowing automatically and then licking his fingers to get every little clump off as he passes the can back to her.

"Where you headed?" he asks as she delves into the can for her own chunk of nutritious nastiness. 

She chews. Swallows. Doesn't seem to notice the artificial meat-flavor that he's still gagging at after all these months. "A smart woman would say 'out', but I got kids back in Battery City. So, I'll say 'nowhere' instead."

It's a story he's heard a dozen times--zonerunners who made their break into the badlands and had to leave their brats behind in Battery City schools, locked up like monkeys in a fucking zoo with BL/ind bullshit pumping straight from the TV into their impressible skulls. The zones weren't safe for kids, weren't safe for anyone...but wasn't that the point? Trading in all the safety and perfection for a life that might be ugly and harsh and very real.

Venom Red hands him the can again. Goes back to the battered pickup truck she'd been driving when she picked him up hitching off the side of Route Guano out in Zone 1 and pulls a sleeping bag out of the cab. It's got a tear in one corner, patched with silver duct tape that's started to curl along the edges, sand sticking to exposed adhesive like it sticks to everything else. The temperature might fluctuate in the low 100s during the day, but at night out here away from the dome of Battery City, in the places where you can still crack your neck back and see stars, it gets damn cold. He almost froze to death the first night after his wheels gave up the ghost and every night after. Her picking him up was a stroke of luck he didn't think he deserved. 

The sleeping bag hits the ground, raising a puff of dust, and she shrugs out of her sleeveless duster. Tosses the coat back in the cab and unholsters her raygun. That, she puts by her head before worming her way into the sleeping bag, where she can grab it easy in the night. She lies down with her back to him, fingers curled loosely around the pistol grip. She's been curt with him the whole day--two people unused to other people trapped in near-orbit.

Jet Star finishes off the dog food and then chucks the can out into the desert. It flashes briefly in the shitty green light and then rattles away into the darkness. Tomorrow, maybe, he can get the truck's radio working, bend the antenna in the right direction to pick up WKIL 109 and the half-deranged rebel ramblings of DJ Dr. Death Defying. He's been out here so long that just the shock of hearing another human breathe is enough to make his trigger finger itch. Maybe enough's enough. Maybe he's ready to be done with the hiding and the ducking and the lurking...maybe it's time to take the fight back to those bastards in Battery City.

Standing, he kicks sand over the slowly dying chem light. As the green burn fades from his retinas, the light from the stars starts to filter in--cold and clean and fucking far away. His shoulder rig clinks as it hits the ground beside Venom Red's head. He takes off his jacket and folds it up to use as a pillow before wiggling into the sleeping bag with her. She stiffens; there's the hiss of her raygun on the sand; he wraps an arm loosely around her waist. Neither of them are small people, but there's exactly enough room for the both of them in the bag. She's warm and solid against him, more real than a hundred bandit transmissions. "Go to sleep," he mumbles into her pale, brittle hair. "Tomorrow, you're gonna tell me about those kids you left behind, and I'm gonna tell you about a couple of 'runners I know outta 2, and we'll figure out where to go from there."


End file.
